Two
TWO
ALEXANDER
E lmo, my demon-in-cat-form, stared at me, disinterest in his little green eyes. His fluffy black body stretched out on the bed as though purposely trying to get in my way.
‘Listen, you little pest. I have less than thirty minutes until my cab is here, and I need to finish packing my case.’
Elmo rolled onto his other side, pressing his paws against my suitcase while side-eyeing me.
‘Dave is coming to stay for the month—and don’t be looking at me like that—I know you love him.’
Rolling my neatly pressed clothes into bundles, I fit them into the case with Tetris-like precision. Every summer followed the same pattern for the past few years: I’d save all my time off for the summer, and head over to the US to see my son.
A soft smile turned my lips as the memories of years past flitted into my mind. Wiling away the hot days teaching him to swim in the lake. Catching fish until the sun dipped. Watching movies until all hours of the night, neither of us wanting to go to bed until our eyes became heavy.
‘I thought it would kill me when his mom moved him back over there,’ I said to Elmo, who twitched his tail and ignored me.
It hadn’t been easy, but having him to myself for a whole month with no school or work had been glorious. Truly uninterrupted time together.
Until he’d hit his late teens, anyway. Being with his dad for a month was no longer an adventure. I’d become a chore. And now that he’d hit his early twenties, I was fairly certain we were on borrowed time. He didn’t want to hang out. My questions were met with curt, monosyllabic grunts.
Sometimes I didn’t know why I bothered to keep it up. Should I sell the lake house and give in to the inevitable distance that grew between us? I’d only purchased it the previous year, deciding to buy when one of the holiday homes had become available. It was a few miles from the spot where we usually rented the same house every year, on the other side of the long stretch of water. I’d hoped it being ours would make a difference, would cement over some of the cracks that had formed.
Summers had become an awkward, socially redundant prison for the both of us. Nick gamed with his friends, talking until late to them through his headset, while I inevitably fell into work.
I loved my son, but I’d also given up every ounce of free time and money for him over the years. Relationships had fallen apart as I had sent half of my earnings to his mother to help raise him, leaving little for fun money, my days off all stored up to spend solely on him. I never regretted becoming a father at fifteen, but neither could I deny the significant impact it had had on me, especially when Nick had moved half way around the world.
‘I thought it would be different when he reached adulthood,’ I said to Elmo, reaching over to scratch his tummy. The miserly fluffball gave a reluctant purr, unable to resist the attention. ‘I thought we’d have more in common.’
I’d worked my ass off to finally get to a top position in the engineering company I worked for. Years of hard slog, climbing every rung through exhaustion and hard work. Nick was seven years older than I was when I had him, and what did he have to show for it? He’d changed his degree course three times in as many years, costing me more and more in fees. I couldn’t even blame his lack of motivation on his mom. When he’d gone to high school, she’d trained in real estate and had become an absolute force to be reckoned with. She could sell a shack to an oligarch for a million dollars without them knowing what hit them.
Maybe the two of us working so hard to fill the chasms in our broken relationship had left Nick spoiled. The over indulgence in his every whim to make up for a lack of a solid home had become more of a curse than a blessing.
My phone dinged, and I sat heavily on the edge of the bed. A security alert for the lake house. I didn’t check the cameras often when Nick was in the house—but they were handy to have when it stood empty for most of the year.
The alert came from a camera at the rear of the property. Pulling it up, I scanned the image, failing to see anything out of place until a woman came stumbling out of the trees and onto the back deck.
‘A pretty little thing,’ I mumbled to Elmo, tipping the phone screen to show him. But what on earth was she doing sneaking into the rear of the home? The road ringed around the lake, with each house spanning from it like spokes on a very large, and somewhat misshapen, wheel.
Long, dark sweeps of hair cascaded to her lower back, skimming the short shorts she wore. She held something, but I couldn’t make it out on the image.
Who was she?
Did Nick have a girlfriend? He hadn’t mentioned anyone when I called. Work had held me back two weeks past our usual dates, so he’d gone ahead to the lake house on his own.
She walked up to the door and out of view.
Curiosity won out over sense, and I flicked to one of the in-home cameras that monitored the main living space.
A warm sensation infused my groin as I watched her. Short and curvy, exactly my type. I’d never dated younger though, and she looked to be a similar age to Nick.
Stop being such a perv , I told myself. Lusting over your son’s—well whatever she was—was downright fucked.
The thickening in my pants cared not for the chastisement in my head.
Elmo narrowed his eyes at me, judgement in full force.
‘Just because you don’t have balls doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t. You wouldn’t understand.’ He had to be the most critical cat I’d ever met. Or maybe I passed my self judgements onto him.
The woman made her way to the sofa, sitting beside Nick and smiling at him. He barely looked at her before resuming his game. I wanted to reach through the phone and clip him over the side of the head.
I expected her to get up and leave him when he continued his game without another look, but she didn’t. She took out her phone and sat beside him, scrolling.
Tragic.
The girl needed to get a backbone and tell my numbskull of a son to sort himself out. Maybe I could tell him to wise up myself.
‘Oh shit,’ I said, closing the app as I caught sight of the time. ‘Why did you let me sit down, Elmo? The cab’s going to be here any minute.’
With another scratch on his exposed belly, I stood, slamming my case shut and hoping I hadn’t forgotten anything.
My flight landed hours later with a rocky bump and an unfortunate wait on the plane, as too many flights came in at the same time due to delays.
With everyone getting restless and the air growing hotter, I switched on my phone. It was nearly midnight, so I expected the living space to be empty when I tuned into the camera.
To my surprise, Nick and the girl lay on the sofa cuddled up and watching a movie. At least he’d finally given her attention.
No. Not cuddling.
Heat crept up my neck as I saw the unmistakable thrusting of hips below the thin blanket they had pulled over them.
Shit. I needed to turn it off.
I had no desire to see Nick fucking anyone.
Reaching for the exit button, I hesitated just a moment, noting the utterly bored expression on the woman’s face. If you’d have told me she was doing dishes or taxes or something equally mundane, I’d have believed you. Her eyes were glassy, focused on the screen far too intently for someone half way through a sex session.
Nick’s hands gripped her over her t-shirt, one laid against her shoulder and the other around her stomach. Nowhere near anywhere that would bring her to anywhere exciting.
‘You idiot,’ I muttered, shutting it off.
Well, he definitely didn’t learn that from me. If a man can’t even put effort into fucking, it was no wonder he was failing at everything else in his life.
Pillock .
If the sweet little thing was in my arms, there’s no way I’d let her zone out. I’d have her moaning my name until she came all over me. There’d be no detachment. She’d be a messy, hot, panting ball by the time I finished with her.
The vision of her gasping my name flashed in my head.
I had to hold my carry-on luggage in front of my crotch as I exited the plane to hide my reaction to the daydream.
God, I hoped she’d be gone by the time I got home.